Facing America’s Great Evils

June 20, 2015

Exclusive: A 21-year-old white supremacist is charged with entering a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, and murdering nine black parishioners, merging two of America’s great evils gun violence and racial injustice. But what can be done, asks Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

The latest gun massacre this time at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, and apparently driven by racial hatred reminds Americans how we all live at the forbearance of the next nut with easy access to weapons that can efficiently kill us, our neighbors or our children. Yet, we remain politically powerless to take even the smallest step to stop this madness.

We also remain in political denial about one of America’s original sins, the cruel enslavement of blacks for the first quarter millennium of white settlement of this continent, followed by another century of brutal racial segregation, the residues of which we refuse to scrub from the corners of our national behavior fearing that doing so will get some pro-Confederate white people mad.

In Arlington, Virginia, where I live, the political leadership can’t even find the will or courage to remove the name of Confederate President Jefferson Davis from state roads that skirt Arlington Cemetery, which was founded to bury Union soldiers, and that pass near historic black neighborhoods in South Arlington, sending them an enduring message of who’s boss.

Davis’s name was added to Southern sections of Route 1 in 1920 at the height of the Ku Klux Klan’s power and amid an upsurge in lynchings and to Route 110 near the Pentagon in 1964 as a counterpoint to the Civil Rights Act.

Besides leading the secessionist slave states in rebellion, Davis signed an order authorizing the execution of captured black soldiers fighting for the Union, a practice that was employed in several battles near the end of the Civil War.

Some of the victims of Davis’s order were even trained at Camp Casey in what is now Arlington County before those U.S. Colored Troops marched south to engage General Robert E. Lee’s army around the Confederate capital of Richmond. I’ve often wondered what message Arlington County and the state of Virginia think they’re sending by honoring Davis. Are they saying that it’s all right to murder and subjugate black people? [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Mystery of the Civil War’s Camp Casey.”]

The Charleston Murders

Of course, South Carolina, the heart of the South’s slave system and the instigator of the war to defend slavery, has its own messages conveyed to its youth, including its proud display of the Confederate battle flag and its endless promotion of “the boys in gray,” including dressing up tour guides in Confederate uniforms for visitors to Charleston.

Some of those messages appear to have sunk in for Dylann Roof, a 21-year-old white supremacist who is charged with entering a Bible study class at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on Wednesday night, sitting with the black parishioners for an hour and then executing nine of them with a .45-caliber pistol before uttering a racial epithet as he left.

The New York Times reported that, according to friends, Roof “voiced virulently racist views and had talked recently about starting a new civil war, even about shooting black people. Photographs of him wearing patches with the flags of the former white supremacist governments of South Africa and Rhodesia, and leaning against a car with Confederate States of America on its license plate, drew millions of views online.”

Yet, besides the usual handwringing that follows one of these gun tragedies, there is little sign that anything of substance will change, either in making firearms less promiscuously available to pretty much anyone who wants them or in addressing the legacy of slavery, the ensuing century of terror that enforced racial segregation, or the more recent experience of police violence directed disproportionately at African-Americans.

What Came Be Done?

While the idea of reparations for slavery sends many American whites through the roof in fury, there are substantive actions that government and private industry could undertake, including major investments in the infrastructure of predominantly black or brown communities, to make these neighborhoods more inviting areas to live and invest.

Instead, the opposite generally occurs. Though the current Tea Party dominance of the Republican Party makes any government spending on anything including maintenance of existing transportation services almost impossible, what spending that does get approved goes mostly to white areas, using public funds to widen, not narrow, economic disparities.

In Arlington County, for instance, billions of dollars in public money have been invested in two underground Metro lines (Orange and Silver) through overwhelmingly white North Arlington, while a far more modest above-ground Streetcar for racially diverse South Arlington was terminated by large majorities of voters in North Arlington.

The racial mix of Arlington’s schools have also shifted back toward the days of segregation with some North Arlington schools nearly all white and the County lacking the political will to reverse these trends.

It’s true that the problems of a wealthy county like Arlington representing the original land of the 100-square-mile District of Columbia that spilled over the Potomac River and was later ceded back to Virginia pale by comparison to conditions in other urban areas, such as Baltimore or Charleston where racial and police violence has recently flared. But the point is that racial and ethnic discrimination remains part of the American way, in big ways and small.

For that to change, there would have to be a transformation of the American spirit, a recognition that past injustices must not be forgotten or even just lamented but rather must become an inspiration for remedial action.

Then, these disgraceful gun tragedies and our long history of racial violence would not just be a source of frustration and a sign of impotence, but a motivation for a national rebirth that addresses past wrongs and lifts up the nation as a whole.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). You also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.

Ninja Hero is the game full of adventure and interest designed and introduced by Eddy Infotech which anybody can play on to there finger tipsâ€¦User needs to tap the screen and magic stick will automatically enlarges from minimum to required length..Length of magic stick should not cross the width of next platform and Ninja will cross the gap between the platforms over the stick..
you can play it while you traveling or waiting for some one

Cal

June 24, 2015 at 18:53

Every time we have some racist event like Charleston I prepare myself to have to read the same old tired babble that happens every time;.

Gun control is the solution, government action is the solution, etc—-

Well no they are not.

The solution to racial hatred is for blacks and whites to actually know each other on a person to person basis.
I live in a 60% black town in the South …about half have decent jobs the other half is mired in working or jobless poverty. I take part in a volunteer program to provide transportation for poor people who don’t have cars or any other mode of transportation.
One of the guys I help is a black man with a cripple arm but who still works as janitor at the local high school. Whenever he cant get a ride he calls me and I take him on his errands or wherever he needs to go, day or night—I enjoy it. He has four children, his wife passed away so no second income, and despite his job has to go to the Food Bank once a week to have enough food to go around. He is trying to save up for a car but he is also putting money toward 2 of his daughters who will go to the Community college this fall. He is also a certified cook and gets a job in the summer when school is closed at a fast food restaurant. Over the time I have been doing this with him I have learned everything about him and he has learned everything about me. We are different in income and color but not any different in basic values, hopes, ect—his are basically the same mine were at his age.
You have to know people to ‘care’, know about their lives and have ‘real
conversations in and about the ‘real everyday world you are both in.

Most of these bloviating mouthpieces and politicians and activist groupies who pontificate about the race problem probably have never spent time with a black as just another person— occasionally they need one to show as a ‘token’ of their concern and photo op for their campaigns–and thats about it.
You cant gun control racism away or legislate it away.
And when you do help a black person you cant treat them as poor or underprivileged due to either their victimhood or their alleged poor stepchild inferior status —it has to be as man to man, equal to equal with the acknowledgement that one of you has yes–been ‘luckier’– than the other–but neither is better than the other. Mutual respect. And particularly respect for a person’s dignity.
Thats what works.

michael

June 22, 2015 at 19:37

How do you know he is a white supremacist?…your parroting g MSM.
Keep pushing the crazy bit…more spin. How come there is no history of violence with this kid.
What about SSRI’S?
We Don’t have a gun problem! You heard that from Obama.
SSRI’S are the new opium. Get an original an a education in logic.
Spin spin spin…

Yea, those courageous and noble Union leaders and soldiers, taking care of those traitorous slave loving rebels. The beacon for hope and prosperity for humans of all races and colors. I wonder what a Native American would say about those Union heroes such as Sherman and Sheridan, et al?

Zachary Smith

June 22, 2015 at 17:33

I wonder what a Native American would say about those Union heroes such as Sherman and Sheridan, et al?

I don’t know. It would depend upon where in the ‘spectrum’ these two were regarding the Indians. There may have been some US citizens who were on the side of the Indians, but I’ve never heard of them. So IMO it would come down to whether the two were “bad” or “worse”. Without some time-consuming research, I couldn’t say.

So far as Blacks went, Sherman was a racist. He refused to allow Black Union Soldiers to serve in his command. He was entirely too cozy with the former Confederates when the war ended. And likewise with Andrew Johnson. Sheridan – no idea.

It’s my view that most of the North was strongly anti-slavery, but were convinced that the Negro was totally inferior. They fought against the institution of slavery, but not for the slave. So the citizens of the North were quite susceptible to the post-war Southern propaganda blitz.

After losing the Civil War, the citizens of the South turned to terrorism. With the assistance of the aforementioned propaganda, they essentially lost the war, but won the peace.

That terrorism has never let up, even to this day.

Bill

June 22, 2015 at 15:35

Slave owners were not “on or coming off meds”, murderers and rapists of slaves were not “on meds”, the KKK is not “on meds”, Jim Crow perpetrators were not “on meds”…

“Meds” and mental illness are NOT the most relevant important issues here. To speak and write of them is an intentional diversion – plus a refusal on the part of the spokesperson to acknowledge and deal with the real issues that haunt and erode this nation: hatred, racism, slavery, and support for mass gun ownership by people who will never serve in the Well Regulated Militia (our military & national guard).

This is how it works – marginal, obscure, and scientifically ridiculed ideas receive legs, when a very wealthy donor throws a few million at the author, maybe gives him/her a job at one of his thinktanks. This is what happened recently to The Bell Curve – Charles F. Murray works for the Koch Brothers owned American Enterprise Institute since 1990.

However, this dynamic – obscure thinker, rich donor, national debate/policy – has a long history, and brought us segregationist laws and the holocaust.

In the case of segregationist laws, there is the Eugenics Records Office, operated by Charles Davenport and Harry H. Laughlin, funded by Mary Harriman of the Harriman railway fortune.

Lots of people are saying the murdering kid was/is too stupid to have written his “manifesto”. Not that it matters much, but in any event there are plenty of his fellow-travelers in the treason states who could ghostwrite it for him.

Honoring John Wilkes Booth

The League of the South looks to the present and future. However, from time to time we do look back at our past.

This 14th of April will mark the 150th anniversary of John Wilkes Boothâ€™s execution of the tyrant Abraham Lincoln. The League will, in some form or fashion, celebrate this event. We remember Boothâ€™s diary entry: â€œOur country owed all her troubles to him, and God simply made me the instrument of his punishment.â€ A century and a half after the fact, The League of the South thanks Mr. Booth for his service to the South and to humanity.

Such a WONDERFUL Southern Heritage!

Anonymous

June 22, 2015 at 08:14

What percentage of Southerners (of any race) do you suppose are members of, or in sympathy with, the League of the South?

If existing culture was not and is not a big part of the world’s problems today, then from where or what do you suppose modern US exceptionalism, to criminally rule the world, is derived?

If man’s intelligence is superior today it’s likely due to nutritional factors more than any other — human nature, instinct and intelligence has not significantly evolved in thousands of years while technological on top of technological evolution has made it possible to destroy life on this planet — and we’re still stuck with our primitive tribalistic instincts.

An argument could be made that the culture of the old South was less dangerous to humankind and less imposing on all life in general, than is today’s world and historic champions of evil — the empire of the USA — how many deaths are we responsible for since WWII? And how many modern lives have enslaved with debt while denying others the right to benefit from their own natural resources?

I’m not defending the Old South here, but if we’re going to make comparisons and try to understand why things are the way they are, then universal human nature and the fact that cultures continuously evolve, positively as well as negatively and dangerously, must be taken into consideration.

And if we’re going to condemn a particular culture why not the US in general? How is it that racial bigotry and priviledge survived and has been alive in the entire US culture as we see with modern police and civilian actions concerning, among others, racial, economic and religious bigotry across the country and in fact across the world?

A blanket condemnation of the human race may be in order or at the least we could blame the current world situation on the most invasive, influencial and controlling European culture and practice of colonization from which today’s US culture evolved.

Brad Owen

June 22, 2015 at 10:49

“League of the South” sounds like some MI-6 sponsored provocateur group (acting for “The Five Sisters” security state[USA,UK,Australia,Canada,NZ], where they “play” in each other’s back yards, as they’re forbidden to indulge in operations in their own Nations) that is kept on tap for one possible scenario of forcing the USA into necessary Martial Law, thus dispensing with those pesky trappings of democracy. This would be the response to a manufactured “Crisis of treasonous terrorism”, and probably popular…at first.

Cal

June 24, 2015 at 17:49

There is one thing I have learned in 60 years about people like you Smith—there is no cure for stupid. But I will waste a few minutes.

Are you Christian or Jewish?…if so then your heritage is filth and racist.
You are going to have to go a lot farther back then the ‘South’ in laying the ‘blame’ for slavery and hatred…or for continuing it.

Tell you what…I will go along with banning the flag if you also round up and burn the Torah, Talmud, Old Testament and New Testament since they all promote and condone slavery…instructing the faithful on how to purchase slaves, the value of different slaves according to color, Hebrew or gentile or foreign (blacks)….which ones could be freed after 6 years and which one could be sold and which ones could be willed to their heirs.
I also want their churches and synagogues closed because ‘their people’ are associated with slavery.
I also want every northern factory that bought indentured servants as laborers tracked down and plaques put up identifying that location as one where slavery was practiced.
I also want the descendants of every indentured servant using industrialist identified and publically condemned for their ancestors racism and slave holding.
In addition I want every Israeli flag of the racist midget Nazi state of Israel flying in this country at any location taken down.
Like wise with the descendants of slave transporting ship owners—the majority of which were Northerners—not Southerners.

There is a lot of ‘junk history’ out there today that people like you lap up– –written by junk historians who never cracked open the documents, papers and records of debates held in the South on seceding –which started 3 years before the slavery issue was ever introduced —it started with a tax levied on the South by the North to force the south to send more of their cotton to northern factories instead of exporting it to England. The slavery fight was just the cherry on top of the secession movement.

Furthermore there is big difference between racism and treason…..treason is what the politicians and people like you, the race baiters and ‘collectivist’ bigots and hate mongers and Israeli Fifth column practices in the US when they set black and white Americans against each other to distract from their own treason and condemn one region of the US for one racist murderer while ignoring 500 children killed by Israel with weapons we taxpayers supplied.

As a southerner I could fly a confederate flag if I chose to, I don’t because I don’t want to offend or make the blacks in my town feel bad or intimidated. And they would be because they have been falsely told that slavery was ‘all’ the Confederacy was about.
But I reserve the right to honor my ancestors who died in the Civil War who like 90% of the non slave owning South were fighting for their ‘land’, not for the less than 10% of slave owners to keep their slaves.

Check you own bigotry and ignorance buddy.

Mark

June 21, 2015 at 11:56

Think back to childhood when differences between individuals and the self first stood out and became part of consciousness — as we compared ourselves to each other to see who’s better because of? Because of gender, eye color, hair color, skin color, hight and weight along with natural athletic ability, musical ability, our thinking ability or how much our daddy or mama makes while working — none of these things are the results of any child’s doing why would we take pride or consider ourselves superior based on any of those those factors we didn’t create or choose? They are not the result of our own doing — but our culture promotes such irrational beliefs and has a history of racial preference and priviledge.

From here on out only those who chose their natural birth parents and all their natural attributes have the right to be racists — and only then if they chose the time and place they were born!

Thomas Howard

June 21, 2015 at 10:26

Same line of BS article. Imagine 9 blacks armed, 1 white guy starts shooting, how many dead blacks when the crime is over? Your DISARMING does not seem to work. Facts are facts.

mark

June 21, 2015 at 06:26

As the most violent people of earth, guns are hazardous to our health only because we’re hotheads and collectively, judging by our actions, have little respect for life — just look at our foreign policy — and wars we elect to start — police kill three people on average here every day.

Is it any wonder with our attitude towards human rights abroad that violence is prevalent here at home?

Our problems are many; with a culture based on selfish independence we have no need for real concern for one another — and consequently we don’t value other lives until someone gets hurt.

We are not psychologically healthy — very dysfunctional as a group — and violent as a country.

We need to make some serious changes in our systems and attitudes but we fear change as though what we have now cannot be improved — this is pure ignorance and denial that our problems exist and are real.

Despite the well intentions of Mr. Parry’s article here, which is a fine article indeed, there is no viable remedy to stave off the ongoing terrible gun violence in USA. The NRA and the gun nuts are convinced that ‘more guns mean more good guys with guns to kill the bad guys with guns’. They are utterly convinced of this point of view, not to mention there is huge distrust by gun owners of the government, so they want to be armed to defend themselves against the US military/local law enforcement in the event of civic/political upheaval, revolution, martial law, etc. Another thing that comes to mind is there may be a type of collective ‘blowback’ going on between the constant wars abroad always being waged by the US government that then brings similar violence back home, manifesting itself in these eruptions of gun violence. Take for example the very large numbers of military servicemen who come back from active duty and then get jobs as police officers: they treat Americans (especially blacks) just as if they were still in Iraq or Afghanistan. The equipping of domestic police departments with military equipment from Iraq (grenade launchers, APCs, humvees, high caliber automatic machine guns, RPGs, etc) is a huge mistake by the federal government which will only make this gun violence problem in USA much worse, it reveals how much the federal government fears its own citizens, that it wants to use military weapons against them. All in all this is a horrible situation with no end in sight.

Joe Tedesky

June 21, 2015 at 03:24

If only you could peer into the mine of Dylann Roof, what would you see? I just read Dylann’s manifesto. He claims the Travon Martin cast flipped a switch in him. This is apparently when he googled ‘black on white crime’ (something like that)…then he flipped. Mostly, he flipped due to the attention Travon was getting over some knocked off white guy being ignored. Dylann see’s things by race. He hates Black, Jews, some Hispanic, and wants to Allie with Asians (because he thinks their racist…don’t kill the messenger), but Dylann has gone down the wrong road. If only Dylann could have gained another perception then possibly he at least would not have killed anyone. Flags may have a little to do with it, but Dylann’s perception of that rebel flag was not about noble confederate history. Slavery was a bad idea no matter what section of America you hail from. The wars over boys, now go mingle!

If only you could peer into the mine of Dylann Roof, what would you see? I just read Dylann’s manifesto. He claims the Travon Martin cast flipped a switch in him. This is apparently when he googled ‘black on white crime’ (something like that)…then he flipped. Mostly, he flipped due to the attention Travon was getting over some knocked off white guy being ignored. Dylann see’s things by race. He hates Black, Jews, some Hispanic, and wants to Allie with Asians (because he thinks their racist…don’t kill the messenger), but Dylann has gone down the wrong road. If only Dylann could have gained another perception then possibly he at least would not have killed anyone. Flags may have a little to do with it, but Dylann’s perception of that rebel flag was not about noble confederate history. Slavery was a bad idea no matter what section of America you hail from. The wars over boys, now go mingle!

How can we reconcile the fact that the President is awash in sympathy for the victims of a monster who was inspired by white supremacists (with their connections to neo-Nazis in the US), denouncing them, yet he has ordered the Pentagon to support and train neo-Nazis in Ukraine?

Nassy Fesharaki

June 20, 2015 at 19:27

Charleston shootings

Esfahan is the city where I lived as a child
I was there for some months, since flood.

Like the yarns for carpets, I took form
In big pots they were put, were boiled
Colours in many shades deeply ranged
From red and maroon to the pink, grey.

Then on roofs and on bars and ladders
They were hung side by side, or apart
City was colourful as if Eidâ€™s presents
(Roasted crops, the saved and availed.)

Colours base collected, harvested or managed
by picking branches, and bushes, fruitsâ€™ skins
And some seeds and the parts, chosen, mixed.

To remain steady, never change and last long
Wax was used of honey, also from bush, trees
Of bushes, was Loco-Thorn; white hard gum.

As carpets hear songs, and laughter with cries
I absorbed everything around me, myth or fact.

All above, and people, also shops, and formats
Have been base, foundation; I became who I am.
My thinking, ideas and actions took shapes there
Training is the root; same must be Dylann Roof.

eloda.35Anna@yahoo.com

June 21, 2015 at 12:35

Wonderful, well thought our poem. Thanks for sharing.

F. G. Sanford

June 21, 2015 at 14:01

Very nicely expressed. ‘Dyed in the wool’, ‘ripened on the vine’, a ‘carefully crafted pattern’: race hate is not the enigmatic product of a deranged mind. It is the desired outcome of a culture that, in its own impoverished niggardliness blames its woes on ‘the other’. The same culturally inspired hatred that seeks to “keep down” minorities works against the disenfranchised of all races. South Carolina has gerrymandered its schools into de facto segregation, its voting districts into segregation, and with its “Right to Work” laws, has insured that the poor of all races remain wage slaves. Whites and Blacks there continue pridefully voting against their own interests, and even prominent Black politicians support those laws. Ironically, Black churches are perhaps the only institutions that could fight back, and that’s where this attack took place. Hats off to this Poet. My grandfather used to say of race hatred, “They learn that stuff at the teat”. Its woven into them from the very beginning.

I glad you mentioned this problem with SSRI drugs. Go and look at all of the events like this…mass/high profile shootings…and you will see a VERY high percentage of use. Now, before someone says that they were nuts and needed to be on them, well, I don’t buy it. A close friend of 40 yrs had become ill and was depressed over his doctors’ inability to figure out his problem. So, good ole doc(#1) put him on anti-depression drugs. He became somewhat withdrawn and even more ill. Months later, he finally gets a different doctor(#2) that finds his problem and deals with it. Now, he still has BP problems, so still takes meds…when his drugs came up for refill, he called his regular doc(#1) and doc says he has to come in. It’s 50 miles and he says NO…just send me a refill. Doc won’t do that, so he says forget it, I will do without. In the meantime, he runs out of his anti-depression drugs. His doc calls and tells him he can’t just quit taking his ADs…but he did. 2 weeks later he feels much better and tells me something that scared the crap out of me. He said when he was on those drugs he could have killed 10 people and it wouldn’t have bothered him a bit. That is what got me to start looking at whether these people committing these heinous crimes were users or not. Go look up any one of these events… from Columbine to this one and see what you find. These drugs are very useful in mind control…that is from a research website. So, is it just a co-incidence…or is it just slightly possible that these events are diversions…orchestrated to keep people from paying attention to other events…such as passage of TPA/TPP?

Gregory Kruse

June 20, 2015 at 14:30

This incident is not a tragedy, gun or otherwise. It’s simply mass murder. Everybody can agree that this guy is a white supremacist, but many, including all white supremacists, do not believe he is a mass murderer, because they (including Dylann Roof) believe with some delight that black people are animals, and that killing animals is not murder. This is a fact that is never admitted publically, but is shared with glee and merriment privately among white supremacists and racists the world over. That such horrid beliefs nest in the very heart of some people who consider themselves the only humans on the planet is revealing of the depths of evil in the human heart. As for Dylann Roof, he is a sorry representative of white supremacy.

Otto Schiff

June 20, 2015 at 14:10

There are two factors here.
One is racial hatred. The other is man’s inhumanity to man.
Aside from race, there is the constant warfare, which is
government legalized killing (murder).

Zachary Smith

June 20, 2015 at 16:04

Factors: there is at least one more. Despite outward appearances, South Carolina is a backward place. Enough of the “natives” continue to be supportive of the treason which turned into the most destructive war in the history of the US. Flying the traitor flag is deeply etched into the Law of the state.

Yet another: the gun nuts got their start when the Constitution included the Second Amendment to guarantee that the kidnapped African Blacks couldn’t mount a successful rebellion to free themselves. Allowing – nay, encouraging – white kooks to flaunt their ****** killers is spreading like a cancer throughout the nation. But it started in the treason states. But you’d better not try “open carry” if you’ve got the wrong color skin – that’s a sure-fire way to become quickly dead.

It’s time to amend the Constitution to encourage control of the killing devices. I’m not all that well informed with the Australian experiment, but those folks had the sense to do something besides sit on their hands when THEIR nutcases started the mass murder sprees.

After all these years we could surely improve on the Australian’s work if we cared to try. But I don’t expect it to happen. The gun nuts are almost as successful as the Zionist Lobby. And oddly enough, the groups tend to overlap because they both have Good Christians & warmongering racists. Hate/fear the ******* and Palestinians alike. (Both Black skinned ******* and Brown skinned Muslims make the gun nuts grab their guns and lovingly stroke them.)

And both the ‘nuts and the Christian Zionists embrace a big side dish of Treason. One with “Israel First, and the other with The Confederacy Forever”.

John B

June 20, 2015 at 21:11

Although your statement is understandable here, there is more to the Civil War causes than “treason”, and more to the Second Amendment than “gun nuts.” One could explore the Civil War causes fully and find fault on both sides, and one could support the need to avoid disarming the populace against over-armed government, without in any way approving racism or gun violence. Only by looking to the inciting factors can we find the solutions.

This killer was clearly angry and ignorant, and incited by other angry and ignorant people, all looking to blame external groups for the frustrations and injustices they could not trace to family, community, subculture, exploitative capitalism, and money control of mass media and elections. I see this every day among lower class whites, incited methodically by opportunist middle class demagogues, to attack anything but the family, community, economy, and oligarchy that cause their problems.

All of my charitable work has been attacked by such people; they are always bad neighbors; they steal whatever they can on any pretext, and they are completely unable to reason. The ultimate causes are the ignorance, selfishness, hypocrisy, and malice of this exploitative pseudo-civilization. The ultimate cause of that is the corruption of elections and mass media by economic concentrations.

Zachary Smith

June 20, 2015 at 21:34

One could explore the Civil War causes fully and find fault on both sides…

Perhaps in the sense that there are “two sides” to the Climate Debate. You know, the actual scientist side and the paid industry who*es.

“State’s Rights” demands were real enough – the slave south demanded the right to continue to breed humans, steal their young, and transport children and parents alike to a market where they were sold – exactly like farm animals. And once purchased, they were treated like farm animals to the degree desired by the new owners. You’ve got to sometimes whip a mule to get him to do your will, and you’ve got to often whip a human to make him do the unpaid work you assign him. Or her. You also get to use the female black animals as your personal sex objects.

No doubt you can find some noble dixie flag types who felt fully justified in starting the Civil War to defend their grand and highly cultured civilization – the “two sides” argument.

Don’t expect me to be impressed.

kathy

June 21, 2015 at 01:09

John B didn’t condone slavery or the cruelties associated with it. He simply pointed out your argument as to guns was bullshit.
Also, a lot of the civil war was over economic issues. Lincoln was pretty racist in his attitude towards blacks.

Thomas Howard

June 21, 2015 at 10:16

Go read ‘honest’ Abes first inauguration speech, then read the Declaration of Emancipation….report back to me the passion for the black man.

Thomas Howard

June 21, 2015 at 22:51

You are impressed enough to stay out of Texas.

Frankly

June 22, 2015 at 20:58

Yup. There was one and only one cause of the Civil War, slavery must have no limits. The North was to blame only in that it wanted to limit slavery to part of the nation so that free men did not have to compete with slave owners. That simple limit was “too much” for the treasonist bastards to accept. Read the “cornerstone” speech given by the CSA vice-president it lays out the one and only reason for their treason. Read the Constitution of any of the States that succeeded, most list one reason, the same reason, slavery & the governments attempts to limit its spread.

rosemerry

June 21, 2015 at 17:48

What about the birthday gift of the gun from his dad? This is normal in so many parts of the USA. What was it intended for? Did his dad also have these racist ideas and plans?

Peter Loeb

June 21, 2015 at 07:07

SAME DIFFERENCE

Having participated in many actions to rid our nation of racial hatred
and being attuned to anti-black history I can only add the following:

Racial hatred against blacks is not peculiar to the USA but has
always been most obvious here. It shall continue to be so.

Until Americans and policy-makers in the US perceive the very same
racism and supremacy by the US and ISRAEL against Palestinians
there can be little hope for remedy. The racisms are unique
in many respects. This writer has marched with Dr. King, been a
member of SCLC, marched with Bayard Rustin, been a member of
Harlem CORE, worked in Mississippi in Head Start (Counsel:Marian
Wright Edelman) and so forth.Many of my professional positions
were in the black community.

It remains that racism, supremacy, hatred, violence is similar among
US white supremacists and Israeli Zionists.

—–Peter Loeb, Boston, MA USA

John

June 20, 2015 at 19:25

Yeah. As far as setting a strong example of tolerance and humanity towards those that are different, the government could probably be doing a slightly better job.

John

June 20, 2015 at 19:38

Note, don’t read that as a pro-gay comment. Different means people who are willing to question popular views. People of differing politics and religions. People from different countries. All sorts of stuff. Democracy is weird when you see people in shock and awe over racist killing, who then go and support leaders who stand up for killing and rigid political discrimination.

Conspicuously missing from all coverage of this incident is an exploration of where this man got his hate from. Even the SPLC seems to have not had him on its radar.

What would deprive the hate sites of power is if we were to speak back to them…calmly and without hate. Hate thrives in darkness.

geri46@yahoo.com

June 20, 2015 at 16:30

You are so right about “exploration of where this man got his hate from.” That was my first thought when I listened on the news about this sad situation in South Carolina.

Frankly

June 22, 2015 at 20:51

He was a regular visitor to the Conservative Citizens Council website that runs a regular feature highlighting every incident of black on white crime they can find. The site got taken offline when that info came out but bet it will be back soon enough.

The CCC is a favorite groupe of a number of conservative politicians, particularly in the South & is listed as a hate group.

Daniel

June 20, 2015 at 11:48

Another tragedy and stain on our country, showing the world once again the awful divisive power of fear and hatred of the “other”, shamefully propagated by our representatives and senators in their pathological lust for votes, wealth and power and a corporate media that adds to and reinforces divisive, hateful messaging with glee. What else could explain our collective blindness to the fact that we are all one people suffering the oldest story on record – that of the masses being oppressed by a powerful minority.

Centuries of injustice in the US have laid the groundwork for this latest example of inhumanity, and the current political environment assures that we will see many more – at least until we begin to understand that we are meant to live in harmony, not division, as our “leaders” would have it.

The only bright spot I can see is the enlightened response to this tragedy by the families of the victims, providing an example for all of us of a new way forward through forgiveness and inclusion.